501.AB/11–3046
Senator Vandenberg of the United States Delegation to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: Our various United Nation budget problems will shortly come to a climax. I want you to know the situation at first hand because I think the fiscal situation can be a far greater threat to the United Nations (and particularly to the attitudes of the American people) than even the veto 21 issue.
As you know, an Advisory Committee22 (including our Mr. Appleby) reported that the United States has 50% of the United Nations “capacity to pay” annual assessments. I have been fighting this percentage in my Committee for five weeks. I fear that any such assessment against us would shock the American people into a literal revolt. We now have some hope of driving this percentage down to 39% or 40% for administrative expenditures, (on a temporary basis for one year). Even this will be difficult to “sell” to Congress and the American people. But this is only half the story.
Unfortunately, each UN “specialized agency” is virtually autonomous in making its budgets and its allocations. Undoubtedly, they will be largely influenced by the basic percentage of assessment which we accept for the central budget. This in turn produces hazardous consequences. The trouble is that all members of the United Nations are not members of the specialized agencies. For instance, only one-half of them belong to UNESCO. Therefore, a 40% base will become substantially higher when applied to the UNESCO budget. This is relatively true in connection with the budgets of all “specialized agencies” (which are being created entirely too rapidly and too ambitiously).
[Page 495]Consider the refugee prospectus. The State Department is talking about an American assessment for IRO between 43% and 50%. But! It is also proposed to launch IRO when seventy-five percent of its budget has been subscribed. Meanwhile, our dollar contribution would remain the same. This means it could actually represent an assessment against us of 66⅔ percent. I think this would excite the same sort of Congressional resistance as nearly defeated our 72% assessment in UNRRA.
I have been struggling to get one unified budget not only for the Central Office but also for all “Specialized Agencies.”23 I seriously fear the Congressional reaction when eight or ten separate and different budgets are submitted to Congress one by one. It will be impossible to accomplish anything along this line at this General Assembly except to order a study for future consideration.24
This leaves us confronting uncoordinated budgets for 1947 and dangerously high percentages of American contribution. I, therefore, think it is highly important that all of our American representatives in “Specialized Agencies” should be emphatically instructed by the State Department to hold all 1947 budgets to an absolute minimum and likewise to hold our net contribution in the neighborhood of 40%.25
With warm personal regards and best wishes,
Cordially and faithfully,
- For documentation on this subject, see pp. 251 ff.↩
- Senator Vandenberg’s intended reference here was to the Committee on Contributions, not to be confused with the General Assembly’s other standing committee on administrative and fiscal matters, the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions.↩
- See points (3) and (4) of Senator Vandenberg’s proposals to the Fifth Committee on November 8, footnote 82, p. 472.↩
- See Fifth Committee discussions on November 18 in GA(I/2), Fifth Committee, pp. 125–128. These discussions in turn led on November 21 to the adoption of a draft resolution by the Committee which requested the Secretary General to explore ways for developing “a system of close budgetary and financial relationships between the United Nations and the specialized agencies. …” (ibid., pp. 140–143). A resolution to this effect was adopted by the General Assembly on December 14 (United Nations, Official Records of the General Assembly, First Session, Second Part, Plenary Meetings, p. 1376; hereafter cited as GA(I/2), Plenary).↩
- In a memorandum of December 1 from New York to the Acting Secretary (Acheson), Mr. Byrnes wrote: “I think we ought to adopt Vandenberg’s suggestion and instruct our representatives along the lines proposed by him.” (501.AB/11–3046). The Secretary informed Senator Vandenberg of his decision on the same date (memorandum from the Secretary of State to Senator Vandenberg, December 1, File No. 501.AB/11–3046).↩